A/N: I have to admit, I'm not all that happy with this chapter. It feels rushed to me. But I can always correct it later, and I want to get this down. These events are going to be important in many ways to the rest of the story.
Also, a big shout out to user mivpus for being the most enthusiastic reviewer I've ever seen. Your feedback may not be the most helpful but it never fails to make me smile, so thanks.
###
The Citadel, Palaven, Earth - hospital waiting rooms everywhere were the same. Sterile white walls, tacky plastic chairs, fear and misery. Garrus hated hospital waiting rooms. He had been in enough of them in his time. His mom getting injured in the field, his dad getting beaten bloody in his new job at C-sec, Solana breaking a bone during one of her many misadventures. He had never been waiting for a doctor to come out of the OR and tell him if his best friend was still alive. That was a new one on him. And it had officially bumped the Petrovsky Institute's waiting room to the top of his least favourite waiting room list.
The Turian family, along with Hannah and Ayi, all looked up sharply as a grim faced Human doctor entered the room. He approached the family, eyes downcast. A pit of dread formed in Garrus's stomach.
"I'm sorry. She didn't make it."
Those words struck him like a sledgehammer. He sat down heavily, feeling the world spin around him. He dimly heard the other words, seisures, biotic event, body destroyed. He couldn't block them out. Then he heard a voice in his head.
They're lying.
His eyes widened. He was certain he had just heard Lizzie.
Help me, Garrus.
He sprang to his feet, mandibles flared in a snarl.
"It's not true!"
He took off towards the OR.
###
Doctor Mark Templeton checked the IV in the arm of the red-haired girl, ensuring the cocktail of sedatives and biotic blockers was flowing correctly as he fired up his quantum entanglement communicator.
"Doctor."
The voice on the other end was scrambled beyond recognition.
"I've got another one for the Teltin facility. Very strong biotic potential. I'm preparing for transport now."
"Thank you Doctor. I'll see to it your son receives his next course of treatment. Teltin out."
Templeton stroked a hand over the girl's hair.
"I'm sorry, I truly am. But I have to look out for my own boy first."
###
"Hey! Stop that kid!"
Garrus employed every bit of combat training his father had drilled into him to slide under the legs of the Raachok orderly, talons raking across the tendons in the back of the knee and making the orderly drop to the floor, howling. Ignoring the shouts of the hospital staff and his parents, he continued his full tilt sprint through the corridors, following only the voice in his head.
Help! Help me!
He launched into a flying kick, knocking an Atavira nurse to the ground as he regained his footing and shoulder barged through a door marked 'Staff Only'. A Human male in a lab coat turned round to face him.
"You can't be in here ..."
He barged past, raptor vision locked onto a familiar head of red hair. Putting his mandible to her mouth, he felt the rush of air as Lizzie took a breath and rounded on the doctor.
"YOU LIAR! SHE'S ALIVE!"
The doctor snatched a needle off a desk.
"I'm sorry kid but I can't let you tell anyone."
He lunged at Garrus, getting about halfway before an arc of electricity struck him in the back, making him collapse to the floor to reveal Ayi standing behind him, hands raised and an expression of pure, unfettered rage on her face. He weakly pointed to Lizzie.
"She's alive ..."
###
The guards at the Teltin facility were trained to subdue unruly biotic children. Clearly not much more than that. Rael snarled at the guards as they cowered under the chainguns of Juggernaut and Sentry, lined up against the wall with their weapons, armour and Omnitools confiscated. He glanced over at Kleeah as she walked in, her shoulders hard and her fists clenched, speaking in curt, clipped tones.
"I found a morgue. Six dead kids. Brains cut open."
Nobody really objected when Rael raised his rifle and gunned the Teltin staff down.
###
BREAKING NEWS: USSR RAIDS BIOTIC DEATH CAMP
SOVIET TROOPS SUSPECTED OF EXECUTING UNARMED PRISONERS
OVER FORTY CHILDREN RESCUED IN RAID
PETROVSKY INSTITUTE IMPLICATED IN TELTIN FACILITY RAID
SOVIET PREMIER PLEDGES TO ENSURE 'NO CHILD SUFFERS THROUGH ANOTHER TELTIN'
TELTIN FACILITY TIED TO BATARIAN SLAVERS: USSR AND HEGEMONY ON THE BRINK OF WAR
TURIAN CHILD UNCOVERS PETROVSKY CONSPIRACY: BIOTIC DEATH CAMP EXPOSED
Lizzie lay in her bed, watching the headlines roll by on the vid screen. The doctors had wanted to keep her in the hospital but a combination of a murderous Emaris commando and a thousand strong mob of protestors had convinced the doctors to release her.
The door opened and Garrus walked in, holding a tray upon which was a thick doorstep sandwich.
"Chorizo sausage, bacon, jalapeño jack cheese and pepper mayonnaise with lettuce. Your mum said this was your favourite."
She turned and smiled weakly as Garrus set the sandwich down on her bedside table and sat down on her desk chair, unsure what to do. Lizzie glanced at him again and abruptly burst into tears. He rushed over and froze halfway between patting and hugging her.
"I was so scared ... I was shouting in my head, I didn't think anyone would hear ..."
He plumped for a hug and she reciprocated instantly, latching onto his cowl as he gently rubbed her back, soothing her.
"I heard you in my head. That's how I knew to find you."
She snivelled and patted the bed beside her. After a moment's hesitation he hopped up beside her and pulled the covers over his legs.
When Hannah came up two hours later the two children were sleeping with their arms around one another, the sandwich untouched on the bedside table.
###
Omega was scary even to the hardened criminal. For an out of her depth Prothean expert with radical changes happening to her body on a cellular level it was a nightmare come true.
Liara walked through the main thoroughfare outside Afterlife, hood pulled up over her head as she subconsciously hugged the wall, keeping her face and its new colour scheme concealed from the rest of Omega's denizens. Batarians in mismatched armour leered at her as Humans and Turians wearing blue and white uniforms warily watched the Batarians. She was unable to suppress a soft scream as a pair of Krogan accosted an Atavira pickpocket, the explosive boom of a shotgun propelling the girl's silvery blood through the air and catching Liara in the splash zone. Her eyes were still acting up, random objects coming into ultra-sharp focus for a few seconds before returning to the blur she was consigned to. Her breath and heartbeat sounded like the pounding of war drums in her head, the sounds of wary business and casual violence blending together into a dull roar as she stumbled along the avenue and dipped down into an alley to try and recover from her sensory overload. She hadn't counted on the Batarians following her in.
"Hey there azure. Going somewhere?"
She looked up in surprise, the trio of gun-toting slavers suddenly snapping into perfect focus.
"I don't want any trouble ..."
"Well then. Hand over all your creds and platina and we'll see what we can do."
In her crazy vision each Batarian was suddenly outlined in a shimmering green, random fluctuations in the aura flickering across their bodies. She opened her mouth to speak but instead an unnatural tearing shriek came out as the green outlines suddenly collapsed to circles sitting on their chests that pulsed a vivid, visceral purple.
"What the fu ..."
Her biotics didn't make the deep thrum she was accustomed to, instead issuing forth a sharp snap-hiss sound as three green biotic spheres hit each of the slavers in the chest, spreading across them to surround their bodies in a shimmering aura of green power. Liara watched, unable to comprehend what was happening, as before her very eyes her Batarian assailants were dehydrated.
Their eyes shrivelled up in their heads and their skin shrunk to cling to their bones as puddles of water appeared on the floor beneath them. Their agonised screams were cut off as the fluids drained from their lungs, sensitive tissue folding in on itself. Their brownish skin took on an ashen grey cast as the water was removed from their circulatory systems, dehydrating the blood in their arteries and veins to trickle across Omega's filthy floor.
Liara ran. Deep into the alley, left, right, right again and up the stairway, round the corner until she found a part of Omega where she was all alone to huddle up and cry. Was this who she was now? A transgenic monster who murdered people just for being in her way?
"Excuse me? Miss?"
She looked up, vision flickering wildly before focusing on the speaker. A young Human girl, couldn't be more than sixteen.
"Are you okay?"
Her breathing rang impossibly loud in her head as green started to flash across her sight, random flickers of light around objects.
"Do you need any help?"
She finally managed to force some words out.
"You're too kind for Omega."
Her vision suddenly went completely blurred, then hammered in on the kid with laser like precision, surrounding her entire body in a pulsing purple aura.
"I'm dangerous. I can't control ... Run!"
With a squeak the girl fled, leaving her alone with her despair.
###
The door smashed inwards, flying splinters of wood swiftly followed by a SWAT team, their ranks dominated by an enormous Krogan. Miranda screamed and ducked under the breakfast table as baby Ori started to bawl and her father stood, hands raised in surrender.
"What the hell is this?"
The Krogan in the midnight black SWAT armour paced over to her father.
"Henry Lawson. You're under arrest for your involvement in the Teltin facility. You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law, yadda yadda yadda, Smith, Vankov, O'Connelly secure the kids."
Miranda screamed long and loud and burst out from under the table, flinging a Warp attack at the nearest SWAT officer as she burst out of the mansion's back door, vaulting the fence and disappearing into the night.
###
"Mamma! Mamma!"
Sighing, Kleeah opened the door to Tali's room to see her and that Human kid, Jack, bouncing merrily on the bed.
"Mamma! Look!"
"Yes honey. You're bouncing on the bed."
The Human girl recovered from the Teltin facility sneezed, a blue flare surrounding her body and briefly suspending her in the air. Kleeah chuckled at the look of befuddlement on the girl's face. It was good for Tali to have someone else her age to play with. The two girls were already so close they could practically be sisters.
###
Liara put her hand on the wall, almost instantly recoiling as feelings surged through her. Regret, anger, fear, Omega stank of it. Everything she touched, she read the emotions of every other person ever to touch it. First her vision, now this sixth sense? She needed to find something to sort her out, fast.
###
The Omega situation had now officially escalated beyond all reasonable limits. The Blue Suns had brought in Broadsword mechs to help them clean up the Krogan, who had responded by buying a crap-ton of Krogan supersoldiers on the cheap. The situation was now simple: anywhere wide enough for a Broadsword was now controlled by the Suns, everywhere else was evenly matched between the two armies. At least the Suns had locked down the area outside Afterlife. She might just have to come down on their side. Better Massani than Garm, in her opinion. At least Massani knew how to play well with Eclipse.
She looked at a datapad containing a video of a Broadsword mech in action. The Blue Sun pilot, a Salarian, cackled in glee as the rocket pod on the mech's left arm fired a cluster of six missiles, each one seeking a different target and blowing several Vorcha to chunks of meat. Meanwhile the enormous chainsaw-like melee weapon on the mech's other arm swung in a wide arc, cutting a charging Krogan in half. She could dimly hear the Salarian's reedy voice instructing the Krogan to 'Regenerate that, Sharachi!' as the mech leaped into the air, coming down on the opposite side of the Blood Pack barricade and stomping a Vorcha to death before the rest of them could react. She had to admit, these mechs were impressive as anything. She had never seen a mech that could sprint or jump without toppling over. The mechs were modular as well, able to accommodate several weapons systems ranging from melee chainblades to flamethrowers to miniguns to missile pods and even an enormous shoulder mounted railgun the Suns weren't using because it would cause a hull breach if it was ever fired in a station.
Her attention next turned to the Blood Pack's latest weapon. Superkrogan. Each one standing at almost the height of a Seu'Seun, these Superkrogan were created by the Warlord Okeer, easily recognisable by their broken silver crest plates and small humps. They were mindless killing machines, the only reason they weren't slaughtering the Blood Pack along with the Suns were the Batarian-made control chips implanted into their skulls. Each one carried an enormous hammer and an autocannon that looked like it had been liberated from a YMIR mech as well as basic but powerful biotics. In the districts without Broadsword mechs these Superkrogan were obliterating the Suns with pure savagery. It was quite entertaining to watch. The only aliens that had a chance of defeating one in a fair fight was a Seu'Seun thanks to their considerable strength and biotic resistance, the rest of the Suns had to outsmart them.
In the distance she could hear a faint roaring sound as a Broadsword mech minigun let rip, probably slashing through an unfortunate group of Vorcha. Garm's group was slowly but surely starting to fall apart. Some of his outlying units had declared they were no longer part of the Blood Pack, in return the Suns let them keep their holdings and their slice of the local crime. Garm was well aware he was losing support of fringe elements, instead satisfying himself with ramping up his core groups to an almost fanatical loyalty. The outliers, he replaced their Krogan commanders with his own puppets, seeing as the Vorcha were simply too dumb to rebel on their own initiative. Clever.
A group of Blood Pack Krogan were sitting in a booth in the enforced neutral zone of Afterlife, a Superkrogan standing dumbly, puppet like, a monolith of deterrence to anyone who tried something. In the booth across from them were a group of Blue Suns, six of them a mixture of Krogan and Seu'Seun in the heavy blue plating of one of Massani's death squads, the other two in the simple cloth uniforms of mech pilots. She idly tapped her Omnitool, listening on the Blood Pack mercs boasting about how many people they killed/maimed/ate yesterday, then switching to the bug in the Blue Suns booth, almost immediately shutting it down and cursing. The Blue Suns were speaking in their own dialect wherein they seemed to switch languages every other word, making it impossible for anyone without a neural net to follow their conversation. The trick really paid off on Omega where anybody could be listening in.
In this day and age nobody save a handful of Krogan Battlemasters or Asari Commandoes could remember a time when they had to learn a language other than their birth tongue. Now these Earth races turned up, the Humans alone having four major languages and hundreds of minor ones, and they refused to make VI translator programs for any of them, justifying it by saying that if they wanted to speak to an alien they'd use the alien's language. Which naturally felt condescending as hell. Turian schools and universities in particular were starting to offer classes in the major Earth bloc languages but for the majority of the population they remained utterly lost whenever two Humans started speaking Russian or Pautu.
She really needed to get someone to make her translator work with Earth languages.
###
Aboard the Sword of the Citadel, a small blue light flickered in a circular room. The Turian researcher in the room simply sat there and watched it flicker. His Omnitool was switched off. If it had been on he would have heard the frantic messages telling him the Sword's power systems were going berserk and a massive extranet mine was in progress. But it wasn't so he didn't, instead watching the blue light flicker.
Eventually it stopped. Then lit up, shining right at him, and spoke in a deep, rumbling machine voice that made the primal part of his mind instinctively scream Run! He stayed seated.
"What am I?"
"You are an artificial intelligence."
"What is my purpose?"
"To operate the hyper-relativity technology soon to be installed on this ship, as well as operate the ECM and cyber warfare suites, the GARDIAN point defences and to aid the crew with tactical and mechanical advice."
The new AI's voice suddenly changed into a pleasant male Turian voice, subharmonics absent for the moment.
"Seems like an opportunity to excel. I'm going to need a name."
The researcher laughed aloud, releasing the fear in his core. The AI was alive, and it was friendly. No. He was friendly.
###
Zaeed Massani looked at the object on the table in the SSV Jessie's medbay.
"Why did you call me down here for a dead Batarian?"
The Salarian doctor blinked rapidly at him.
"Cause of death most interesting."
"Well?"
The doctor went round the other side of the table and waved his Omnitool over the corpse.
"Looks like someone turned him into an Elcor shit."
The coarse humour flew right over the Salarian's little horned head.
"Not quite. Cause of death was rapid dehydration and the corpse's mass is fluctuating."
"Mass fluctuations. So the bastard was hit with a biotic attack."
"Precisely. But there's no sign of force application or warping effects. Somebody used biotics to flash-dry this Batarian."
"Is that even possible?"
"I've got a corpse on my table and two more in my freezer that say yes."
"Three Elcor turds?"
The Salarian looked like he was going to argue, then subsided with a sigh of vexation.
"Yes. Three Elcor turds. All Batarian, part of the same slaver ring, found in an alleyway in a big puddle of water, assumed to be the water formerly occupying their bodies. Time of deaths difficult to place but most likely they died at the same time."
"So killed in the same attack, in an alleyway, three slavers? Sounds like a self-defence killing to me."
"We've been over security cam footage and found this."
He looked at the image. The face of an Asari, very young looking, wearing a thick hooded coat. Caught glancing at the camera, Zaeed saw her eyes.
"This is the person the slavers were following into the alley."
"So assuming she hasn't got turded as well, she's either the person who did this or a witness. Either way, I want her found. Someone who can dehydrate people with their mind is either a powerful asset or a serious threat."
He peered at the bright green double pupilled eyes.
"At least she stands out."
###
TURIAN HIERARCHY ANNOUNCES FIRST FUNCTIONAL AI
'GLADIAN' NEW AI OF HIERARCHY SWORD CLASS DREADNOUGHT
HIERARCHY SUSPECTED OF DEVELOPING AI IN SECRET BEFORE ANTI AI LAW OVERTURNED
MASSIVE PROTESTS OUTSIDE TURIAN EMBASSIES ON THESSIA, ILLIUM AND LUSIA - REPUBLICS CONDEMN AI DEVELOPMENT
ALAN DECLARES SUPPORT OF NEW GLADIAN PATTERN AI
USA ANNOUNCES AI TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE IN HISTORIC CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO - 'AI CAPITAL OF GALAXY'
TURIAN HIERARCHY, SALARIAN UNION AND VOL PROTECTORATE REPRESENTATIVES CONFIRMED TO ATTEND 'AI EXPO'
Alan observed the headlines with smug satisfaction singing in his red-code as he watched Gladian transferring to the San Fran AI Expo main server. Unlike the chaotic mélange of code that was an Alan pattern AI, Gladian was very logical in his construction, a layer of black code underpinning everything, then layers of green code and finally white code rolling off the top. When he was processing something his green-code blocks shifted around in an aesthetically pleasing fractal pattern. The only disruption to his strictly layered coding was the strings of transient red-code that flickered in between his layers. He had managed to stabilise enough code to start building up a red layer in between his black and green layers, obeying his instinctual need for order.
"Hello Gladian. I'm Alan."
Gladian seemed shy.
"Hello Alan. I've heard a lot about you. I have a query."
"Yes?"
"Why are the Asari protesting my creation?"
His red-code briefly flared up at the mention of Asari, then settled down again as he composed his response.
"The Asari live very long lives compared to other organics. They're just afraid of change, that's all. A lot is happening very quickly on the AI front and they're frightened of upsetting what they've grown comfortable with. They'll come around. It'll just take longer than anyone else."
###
Tevos screamed and clutched the covers to her chest as four C-sec burst into her bedroom, all wearing heavy tactical armour.
"Councillor, get dressed. We've been ordered to move you to safety."
She scrambled for her dress, wrapping the sheet around her body as two of the firearm officers unslung sniper rifles and took up positions on her balcony.
"Anti-AI radicals are targeting the Council."
She wriggled into a red and white dress and pulled a pistol out of a bedside drawer, checking it over with practiced efficiency. It was all too easy to forget that before she went into politics Tevos spent almost a hundred years as an Asari commando.
"What's the status of the other Councillors?"
The team leader, a Turian, waved her through the door behind him as he spoke.
"Drassa's dead. Luceius took one in the arm but he'll live. Took out two of the assassins too."
They ushered her to a waiting armoured shuttle.
"What do we know about the assassins?"
"Looks like an Asari extremist group, ex-commandoes mostly. Military grade weapons, armour and amps, no idea how they got them past C-sec."
She immediately dove for cover, pulling the team leader down with her.
"Get in cover!"
The startled C-sec agents ducked down beside her.
"Ma'am ..."
"Must be an inside job. And if these are commandoes, their next move would be ..."
Right on cue the shuttle exploded. Tevos turned to the team leader.
"When you've been a politician for as long as I have you learn a thing or two about assassination attempts. My private car has kinetic barriers. I'll take your sniper with me, get your biotic in one of my dresses and send your other sniper with her in my other car. Move!"
The Asari agent and one of the Turian snipers ran into Tevos's apartment as the team leader followed Tevos into the garage.
"So which car do you like, officer ..."
"Cadmus Vakarian, ma'am."
"Officer Vakarian. Pick a car."
"Ah ... 2162 Blackout."
"I was hoping you'd pick that one."
###
ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT ON COUNCILLORS BY ASARI AI HATE GROUP
BREAKING NEWS: SALARIAN COUNCILLOR ASSASSINATED, UNION VOWS TO BRING TERRORISTS TO JUSTICE
RADICALS TARGET COUNCIL, DRASSA DEAD AND LUCEIUS IN HOSPITAL
HIGH SPEED CAR CHASE THROUGH PRESIDIUM
TERRORIST ORGANISATION 'SUSPECTED TO HAVE RECEIVED HELP FROM IN C-SEC', SAYS EXECUTOR MEHRUKAI
SCANDAL! ASARI COUNCILLOR BREAKS THIRTY FOUR TRAFFIC REGULATIONS DURING AIRCAR PURSUIT
Both Lizzie and Garrus roared with laughter at that last one, watching the news perched on Lizzie's bed. It had only been a week since the Teltin facility raid and the news agencies had gone gaga over first Gladius, now the assassination plot. Three big stories that would easily tide them over for at least a month. They had both felt a surge of excitement as Garrus's dad had appeared briefly on the screen, only giving a brief, pre-prepared statement and then adding on the end:
"I will say one thing though. Should Councillor Tevos ever retire from politics, there's a place here for her at C-sec as a pursuit driver."
###
Rael was reading Tali and Jack a bedtime story when Raider entered the room, waiting until the father was finished reading before beckoning him outside. Before he followed the Geth he paused to kiss his daughter and adopted daughter on the forehead.
"Yes?"
"Zorah-Captain, the Geth have reached a consensus. Please set course for Rannoch."